


dreams that stay

by Siriusstuff



Series: Teodor Claudius Talan Stilinski-Hale [15]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Established Relationship, Fluff, Full Shift Werewolves, Kid Fic, M/M, Married Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, Married Scott McHall/Isaac Lahey, Parenthood, parental angst, werewolf lore - freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-17
Updated: 2016-05-17
Packaged: 2018-06-08 22:57:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6878248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siriusstuff/pseuds/Siriusstuff
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kids do the darndest things, like... well, you'll have  to read to find out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	dreams that stay

**Author's Note:**

> Fics in this series come in no particular order--maybe some day I'll work out their chronology (but that day is not today!) So... Teo is the oldest he's been in any of these stories, which I felt worked better considering what happens... He'll probably be a toddler again (or younger) in the next one. Who knows!
> 
> The title I derived from a quote by Julian Barnes, “Memories of childhood were the dreams that stayed with you after you woke.”

After the Hales built the gazebo it became Stiles preferred place to wait for the end of the pack run. Technically it was a roof-covered detached patio but Malcolm Hale had constructed it to match the Hale house exterior and it looked awesome, sturdy yet stylish, not pre-fabricated, so Stiles called it a gazebo since he liked the sound of that.

Stiles sat in the gazebo alone. Most of the pack’s humans who’d been there with him were back indoors. Without doubt they were preparing for the return, ready to feed any wolves who were hungry (which was usually all of them.)  Stiles tended to be a part of that prep, since he’d begged Derek and Teo never to eat furry woodland creatures _please_ during their run, but he was feeling too antsy to focus on anything more than waiting right where he sat.

The moon was high, lighting up the surrounding property almost brightly as day. This was later than his husband and child usually stayed gone. Being a summer night, there was no concern about school the next day—but still…

Stiles had heard the usual howling from across the acres of trees, but tonight he thought he’d heard other sounds, like laughs, giggles, whoops in more or less human tones.

Maybe there’d been a sound like a scream once or twice too.—He was hearing _everything_.

The pack pups were growing up. Teo would be six years old soon. Stiles let thoughts of Teo’s upcoming birthday distract him, for a few seconds at least.

He didn’t want to name what he was feeling—because he’d have to call it unease.

 Sometimes the pups formed their own little pack to run through the Preserve with minimal supervision. Maybe that’s what he was hearing.

But that didn’t feel like what nagged at Stiles’s guts.

Married life and parenthood had definitely evolved Stiles’s powers of patience but after noting how much the shadows had shifted across the yard he said aloud, louder than conversational levels, “Alright, Derek, get your furry butt back here now.”

Who knows how many more endless minutes later a figure, looking ghostly in the moonlight, stalked out of the trees. Stiles knew his husband; the figure was definitely Derek. But where was Teo?

Something in Derek’s arms wriggled and kicked, audibly yipping as it squirmed. It seemed determined to escape Derek’s hold.

Stiles stood and rushed from the gazebo but stopped once he saw what Derek held was a wolf pup. He couldn’t speak as he watched Derek lower his face to the creature, then half squat and let it free, yelling “Teo! Be careful!” as the pup charged wildly towards Stiles.

Fortunately for him Derek was right behind the rocketing pup so that when it leapt at Stiles, crashing into his chest, he was there to keep Stiles upright.

The pup was beyond excited, yelping and wriggling in Stiles’s arms but mostly licking. Stiles remained stunned despite wolf tongue lapping his face everywhere, over his mouth, in his eyes. He barely noticed the nips from sharp little teeth or the roughness against his cheeks and neck from thrashing oversized paws.

It was one of those situations so unbelievable that despite already knowing the answer he asked it on the hopeless chance he was wrong. Stiles looked at Derek while the pup still frantically licked at him.

“Is this… our son?”

The pup answered with a bark before resuming its licking.

Derek had nodded also in affirmation, as the last of his beta-shift receded.

“Do you want to sit down?—I think you should sit down,” he said.

Stiles stood still, holding the pup more securely to corral its squirming. In response the pup nuzzled its blunt snout into the crook of Stiles’s neck but the scent-marking lasted only a second or two. The little wolf was just too excited.

Derek had disappeared into the gazebo and returned with a chair, which Stiles dropped into heavily.

Derek could count on one hand the times he seen Stiles speechless. He’d need his other hand now. He too was still a little overwhelmed at the transformation his son had managed, unheard of in a werewolf so young.

Derek sensed Stiles’s upset but waited for a cue from his mate before saying anything.

With more lap available Stiles tried to get the pup—he still hadn’t called it by his son’s name—to sit quietly. It was leggy; it looked light-colored in the moonlight, probably tawny gray. Staring, Stiles stroked his fingers through the fur while the wolfling attempted to clamp its mouth around Stiles’s hand. He’d have laughed at its antics—if it weren’t his child in wolf form he played with.

When he’d stop his play-biting the pup panted, tongue lolling.

Derek decided to get some water for him but just as he walked away came a child’s screechy cry: “ _Tay-oh! **Tay-oh**!”_

Maddox Lahey-McHall came running through the trees, followed by his two dads.

Wolf Teo whipped his head around instantly at the sound of Maddox’s voice and leaped from Stiles’s lap before he could react.

The young human and young wolf collided yards from the tree-line. With shrieking laughs Maddox flopped to the ground. The pup jumped on his friend’s chest and covered his face in licks. Maddox giggled and squealed and made no effort to stop the wet welcome.

To Scott, aware of the little wolf’s identity, the sight was both wondrous and funny. He couldn’t keep the big grin from his face hearing his own child’s laughter. But he could see Stiles too, and Stiles was definitely not laughing.

Leaving Isaac to watch over the pair Scott crouched at Stiles’s side when he reached it.

He asked, “Everything OK here, buddy?” but he was using his veterinarian tone, the one reserved for clients with sick pets.

“Everything’s fine,” Stiles snapped. “Except—my kid’s—now a four-footed— _critter!”_

“It’s kind of a big deal,” Scott replied, as if that would soothe, which it did not. At the same time Derek, behind Stiles’s seat, ran both his hands over his husband’s shoulders, down his arms, and asked, “That’s why you’re so upset?”

After he’d heard himself it _did_ sound like a stupid question. The answering look on Stiles’s face assured him it was.

“Why hasn’t he shifted back?” Stiles snapped again, to the background sound of Maddox’s on-going giddy laughs. “ _Will_ he? _Can_ he?—Tell me— _something_ , Derek!”

Squatting on Stiles’s other side Derek could tell only what he’d witnessed. He’d watched it happen with his own eyes and still could barely believe it.

“Some of us, with kids, we were running together.” He nodded toward Scott. “Teo and I started playing—hiding—hunting each other. Then we were running to catch up and we jumped over these two fallen trees.” Derek paused here but Stiles’s and Scott’s intense silent stares made him resume immediately. “I thought he’d tripped. He was on the ground. He was—shifting, all the way—to wolf.”

What Derek did not tell was at first he’d thought, horrified, that Teo had broken his arm in falling. But then he recognized it was limbs and body altering, from human to wolf. Teo had groaned with the re-shaping and re-positioning of his bones and organs. Stiles didn’t need to know that.

“Then there was this wolf pup standing on Teo’s clothes. He jumped on me and started licking me.”

“Was he—scared?” Stiles interrupted. “Were _you_ scared?”

“He was—excited. I didn’t smell fear. I—didn’t—I _don’t_ know what to think. This doesn’t happen—”

“This is not comforting, Derek!” Stiles’s voice cracked.

Just then a loud shriek from Maddox got all the adults’ attention. Wolf Teo was tugging on the cuff of Maddox’s jeans, shaking his head, growling in play. Maddox, giggling non-stop, was tugging back, and when he’d freed his pants from Teo’s jaws Teo pounced, the two of them wrestling in the plush grass.

“I’m getting him water,” Derek announced. “I’ll be right back.”

He kissed Stiles hastily on the cheek and, not waiting for any reaction, rushed to the house.

“Do I have to be a werewolf to appreciate this?” Stiles asked Scott. “Instead of feeling like I could puke?”

“I don’t know. Maybe,” was Scott’s reply. “It really is,” he could only repeat himself from moments before, “kind of a big deal.”

Definitely _not_ the thing to keep saying.

“I don’t know everything about werewolves,” Stiles vented, “But I thought only _alphas_ —I thought only _mature werewolves_ could do this! I thought there had to be _intention!—_ Is this a _supermoon_ or something I don’t know about?”

“Stiles—”

“ _Why doesn’t he change back!”_

Scott took a few seconds to respond, calmly.

“I don’t think it’s because he _can’t_.” He paused again. “I think—maybe he’s having too much fun. Maybe he wanted you to _see_.”

Both Scott and Stiles looked to where Isaac had hunched down and petted the wolf pup, no doubt trying to settle both pup and his own child. But wolf Teo was not having that, making toothy feints at Isaac’s hand—until he spotted something and ran for it.

Derek had returned from the kitchen, in one hand a bowl, definitely not a dog’s bowl but a large metal mixing bowl, in the other a jug of water. He set the bowl on the ground and began filling it.

That’s what wolf Teo had seen and ran toward, now eagerly lapping up a deep drink.

Maddox attempted to cover the distance to the water bowl on his hands and knees but when that proved too slow a means he stood and ran, dropping back to all fours when he was beside Teo. Then he stuck his face in the bowl and started lapping, which was not very effective with a human tongue, so he slurped.

All four dads took a second to get over the impulse to stop the boy drinking from the same bowl as an _anim_ —but it was Teo, not an animal. Maddox and Teo shared the same straw sometimes, the same popsicle and ice cream cone. The two shared spit all the time.

Stiles was out of his seat, joining his husband and friends around not _the_ most unusual sight to be seen that night.

The anxiety gripping Stiles loosened some.

“Well, I guess I’m the only one with a phone here.” He held it up in hopes of getting a photo of the scene despite the only light being the moon’s and his phone’s flash.

Maddox looked up, water dripping from his mouth and chin. He was still keeping to his beta-shift, mild as it was on the four and a half year old. Blond and blue-eyed like his dad, the little peaks on his ears, his slightly fuzzier face, made him look more elfin than lupine. Still, he’d never held onto his beta form for this long.

“Daddy, I want to be a wolf, too,” he announced.

Isaac answered, “I don’t know what to tell you, Madd.” But Scott, as always looking for the way to help everybody, suggested: “You’ll have to ask Teo how he does it, when he’s a boy again.”

“ _Yes,_ Maddy!” Stiles urged. “Tell Teo to change back to a boy so he can tell you.”

But Maddox only pouted. “He doesn’t want to change back now,” he said.

Stiles quietly collapsed against Derek, hiding his face, muffling his words. “I’m gonna effin lose it, Derek.”

Derek did his best to comfort, but he too was far from calm. “Don’t yell at him, please. Don’t insist—”

“ _I’m not_!”

“Stiles,” Scott intervened, “I’m pretty sure Maddox meant ‘ _right_ now.’”

Even Isaac spoke up, “Yeah. He doesn’t really understand that distinction yet.”

Stiles sobbed. But all the wolves around him had suddenly become aware of their alpha’s getting near. Even Maddox and the wolf pup at his side were looking towards the trees, where Talia Hale emerged with more of the pack around her.

Talia wore a long shirt. She shifted to wolf for nearly every full moon run and some of her pack always made sure there were clothes to cover her at the run’s end.

Talia stopped a short distance from the group around the water bowl but by some silent or unseen direction all the pack with her continued to the house.

“Teo,” Talia called, with both grandmotherly tenderness yet also alpha command, “come here, pup.”

Stiles watched his wolf-shaped son bound over to the alpha, who picked him up and cradled him on his back in her arms. Talia’s eyes glowed red. For the first time all night, wolf Teo kept still.

As softly as he could, Stiles whispered, “What’s happening? What’s she saying?”

“I’m hoping she’ll tell us,” Derek answered.

After only a few minutes the Hale pack alpha was carrying the still wolf-shaped Teo back to his fathers.

“Stiles,” she assured, passing him to his papa, “he is not stuck this way.”

Stiles cradled the pup as Talia had. Wolf Teo lodged his snout in Stiles’s armpit and _whuffed_.

With her voice low Talia continued. “I’m sure he knows you’re upset—you both are.” She got even quieter. “I believe he’s afraid you’re angry at him.”

“No, baby boy, no,” Stiles began, nearly lamenting. “Papa’s not mad at you! He’s just—”

Talia put her finger across her lips, the “shush” sign.

“Just _be_ calm,” she said.

Stiles pressed his face against Teo’s muzzle and got a soft lick. Derek had one arm around Stiles’s shoulders, his other hand stroked wolf Teo’s belly as Talia shepherded them, Scott and Isaac too, to the house.

Maddox insisted on keeping to his hands and knees so Isaac just carried him.

“We’re going to have to wait till Teo can tell us himself, exactly what he felt before making the full shift.” Talia explained. “I’ve only heard of this in old stories, legends really, where entire packs, from youngest to oldest, lived as wolves in the deep forests—when there was so much more forest.” She ended with a sigh.

“I’ve told everyone to give you some room, otherwise they’ll be making a fuss over this, and I know you’re not in the mood.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

The scent of food filled the interior, the smell of something roasted. Teo perked up at it but Talia suggested not feeding him before bed.

“He’ll be hungry but hunger might encourage him to shift back,” she said.

That was enough to convince Stiles to let his boy go hungry for a night. Derek decided not to eat either, in solidarity.

“I’ll be fine.”

“I just want to go to bed,” Stiles groaned, still clutching his wolf-son close.

As soon as Isaac lowered Maddox to the floor he’d dropped down to his hands and knees again. His features were human now but he’d begun imitating wolf Teo’s barks and yaps.

“Can I sleep with Teo?” he asked, pausing his wolf-speak and looking up at both his dads.

“Teo’s sleeping with his daddy and me tonight,” Stiles told the boy. “You two can have a sleep-over soon.”

“You’re sleeping with Poppy and me,” Isaac added, which sounded to Maddox almost as good as sleeping with Teo. “We’re staying here tonight. You can talk to Teo in the morning.”

“ _I hope_ ,” Stiles mumbled. He put Teo on the floor. “Say goodnight now.”

He quickly regretted doing that when the pup and Maddox started to circle each other.

“I swear to god, Derek, if they sniff each other’s butts I’m gonna—”

Derek cut him off, tugging him close, with a jolt. “They’re _not_ sniffing each other’s butts.”

He scooped up the little wolf and headed to the stairs. Other pack kids and cousins wanted to kiss Teo goodnight too, and some pack adults took that as their cue to offer some hugs and handshakes to Stiles and Derek but Talia stopped all that with a “Let them be! Let them go to bed!”

In the third floor room they always claimed on pack run nights Stiles wiped off the paws— _feet_ , he meant _feet!—_ of his child and set him on the bed while he undressed. He felt exhausted but his mind still spun.

Derek had stripped to his boxer briefs and waited for Stiles to get in the bed. Normally on a pack run night they’d both be there, just the two of them, naked, and Teo would be in a puppy pile in another room. But they weren’t letting their wolf-baby out of their sight and neither were feeling amorous, no matter how potent the blazing full moon’s influence.

Stiles lay down on his usual side in their bed, the left. He adjusted Teo alongside, with his legs and paws on Stiles’s chest (which is why he’d kept on his t-shirt.)

While Stiles petted him, doing his best to accept that this young wolf was _his child_ , Teo panted.

“He’s anxious,” Derek said, voice low.

Stiles combed his fingers gently along the pup’s muzzle, stroked his head, caressed his soft ears.

“Teodor, Papa is not mad at you. Daddy is not mad at you. Everyone says this is wonderful, that you can turn into a wolf—and you’re just a little boy.” Stiles paused till his emotions settled again and his voice wasn’t quaking. “And I’ll say it’s wonderful too, and be so very very proud of you—when I know you can switch back and forth, the way your grandma does. But right now—” he choked up once more “—I miss my baby boy’s sweet face.”

Derek edged into the bed, behind Stiles, which got him a confused look in return.

“What are you _doing?”_

“Getting into bed with you and our son.—Move in some. Please.”

Stiles’s look grew even more suspicious, but he scooted to the bed’s middle and Teo moved with him, stretching out with his furry back against Stiles’s side when they’d all settled.

Stiles returned his fingers to the pup’s neck scruff and Derek, reaching over Stiles, ran his hand soothingly the length of the little shape-shifted body.

“Sweet dreams, Tay,” Derek said, whisper soft.

Stiles could have talked and talked, manically. He sometimes talked himself to sleep but he was aware he’d only voice his anxieties now—certain they already fouled the air both Derek and Teo breathed. So he kept quiet, hoping he’d find some way to fall asleep.

He was, strangely enough, feeling like he could.

Derek had learned that his werewolf power to drain pain had other applications. Yes, he used it to lessen Stiles’s headaches and achy muscles, or to hasten Teo’s ouchies going away even faster, but he’d found out how to wield it the way pain-killers helped humans to relax and get rest and sleep. Spooned around Stiles, Derek focused on stilling his mate’s agitated mind and diminishing the tension throughout his body.

Stiles knew what was happening and he welcomed it. He hadn’t asked Derek for his sleep mojo, but at that moment they both seemed to acknowledge the less talk the better. In the enveloping, cozy fog Stiles thoughts floated away. Even his last one, something about his mom, could not stop his total fade-to-black.

 

He sank so deeply asleep he startled awake clueless as to where he was or why he was being knocked by elbows, knees— _what the fu—_?

He was one hundred percent awake once he realized he was looking at his naked, smooth-limbed boy, appearing just awakened himself and just as confused.

“ _Teo!”_ Stiles cried. “ _Ohmygod!_ ” He grabbed his kid, his human kid, and hauled him into a ferocious if clumsy hug. The two rubbed their faces together, Stiles still crying “ohmygod” and Teo sobbing, more quietly, “Papa.”

Stiles saw Derek on the edge of the bed, behind Teo. He was holding a pair of boxer briefs with—Stiles noted because his brain even in a moment like that deemed it worth noting—batman signals all over them.

“Let Daddy get your underwear on you.”

Once in his briefs Teo hugged his daddy and they shared scents. Then Derek lay down and Teo lay on his back between his fathers.

Stiles, dizzy with relief, finally asked what time it was, only to find not even a half hour had passed since he’d fallen asleep.

“You both went to sleep about the same time,” Derek explained, having witnessed everything, “And Teo started to shift back just a little while after.”

“I was dreamin’,” Teo said. “An’ my wolf told me we could trade places again.”

Stiles trusted Talia would gently prod Teo for information about how he’d managed the full shift—but Stiles wanted to know first, and maybe _he_ would answer Talia’s questions.

Still, Derek asked before Stiles could: “Is that what happened, when we were in the Preserve?”

“Yeah, Daddy,” Teo answered with a croaky voice. “When we jumped in the air my wolf jumped in fronta me an’ said ‘Let’s trade places,’ an’ we did.” He yawned. “Can I go back to sleep now?”

“We can _all_ sleep now,” Stiles replied, tipping a glance at Derek that made Derek lean over so he could kiss his mate goodnight.

Then he kissed Teo before turning off the lamp on the bed table.

Stiles shifted around until he lay with his nose in Teo’s hair, which smelled the way it always did. Sorting out unprecedented events could wait till tomorrow, he decided. The sudden return of the Stilinski-Hale version of normal swept away Stiles’s every angsty thought, and when the sound of Teo’s breathing let him know his son had already returned to slumber Stiles quickly followed.

 

Then… there were quiet voices. As soon as Stiles moved, “Papa, I’m hungry,” he heard.

Stiles opened his eyes to curtain-filtered daylight and the sight of Teo on his knees next to him. Derek was rousing too.

“An’ I smell bacon,” Teo nearly whined.

“OK, OK, breakfast, yeah.” Stiles’s brain lurched into gear as his feet touched the floor. “Yeah. Teo—go take a quick shower. With daddy.”

“ _What?”_ came Derek’s groan from somewhere behind him.

Stiles twisted around to give Derek the glare he deserved.

“You’ve both got _the woods_ all over you.”

“But, Papa, I’m _hungry!”_ Teo pouted.

“Then be quick!”

They kept a small cache of provisions at the Hale manor, their preferred soap, shampoo, a few changes of clothing. Stiles stripped the bed linen, laid out a shirt and shorts for Teo, and longed desperately for coffee, which Grampa Hale never failed to brew to perfection.

Derek would have to retrieve the clothes and shoes shed in the Preserve when Teo had shifted, though probably someone had already done that, knowing the Hales. Pack took care of pack.

When the trio descended to the kitchen, only Talia, Malcolm and a few adults were still at work cooking breakfast.

Talia had overheard the late night events in the third floor bedroom and so knew her grandson was back to human form. She concluded her good morning kisses and hugs with a tilt of her head at Teo and some signature Hale eyebrow language, which Stiles was free to interpret as he chose.

“Everyone’s in the pavilion,” she said.

(Talia insisted on calling the _gazebo_ the _pavilion_.)

As soon as they were outside Teo tugged at his t-shirt and complained. “It’s too hot!”

Stiles helped him remove it. Werewolves had no dress codes, as attested by Derek’s weird and rarely seen uncle, Peter, who’d not been there last night and had shown up for breakfast, if that was in fact a bloody mary in his hand. He was seated in a far corner, clad in only sandals and pale shorts that made him appear nude.

Stiles couldn’t attend to the strange sight further because no sooner had they come under the roof of the gazebo when one after the other all of Teo’s cousins and young pack mates each greeted him with a clear, unvarying “Hi, Teo! Hi, Teo!” None took their eyes off him.

Something was going on that Stiles couldn’t smell, but Teo was blushing.

“Is our son—a _celebrity_ now?” he asked Derek, who nodded, smirking.

Parked between his dads, with his fork stalled over his breakfast plate, Maddox just stared as Teo got nearer the crowded big table. He hadn’t said anything then turned to Isaac and asked, “Daddy, can Teo sit there?”

Isaac might have wanted to respond with a “What?” but he opened his mouth and nothing came out.

From the other side of Maddox Scott saw his husband’s wide eyes and surprised if not stunned expression, and if it made a noise he might have even heard a heart cracking.

“Hey, Madman,” Scott spoke up, “Poppy’s gonna go talk to your uncles, so Teo can sit here, OK?”

“OK, Poppy.”

“What do you say, Maddox?” Isaac prodded, keeping up his parenting despite barely recovering from feeling _replaced_.

Maddox didn’t know what you said. He’d never asked for such a thing before.

“Thank you?” he guessed.

“That’s it! You’re welcome, Maddox,” Scott cheered. He ruffled his boy’s hair, stroked up and down Isaac’s back and kissed him on the side of the head before letting Teo take his place on the bench.

Malcolm set down a plate of eggs, toast, bacon _and_ sausage before Teo, and Talia brought him a glass of juice and a little bowl of melon slices.

As hungry as he felt, Teo didn’t start eating. He dropped his head and shyly turned to Maddox, who was only staring at him with what might qualify as awe.

“That was _so_ _cool_ ,” Maddox finally declared. Then Teo giggled and Maddox grinned hugely and everything was great again. Teo crammed a strip of bacon in his mouth and offered one to Maddox, who took it even though he still had bacon on his plate.

From the other side of the table where Teo sat, at a smaller table all their own, Stiles and Derek observed the goings on. Then Scott joined them and all he wanted to know was what they’d discovered about Teo’s fully shifting.

“We’re not pressing him,” Derek answered.

“Yeah, the werewolf history books can wait,” Stiles added, in a low voice, making at least a gesture at keeping his opinions to himself.

“But what he told us is that he and his wolf ‘traded places.’”

“Hunh,” Scott mused, riveting Derek with a look. “Maybe I’ll try that!”

Stiles was sure there was more to it than that but didn’t feel like speculating. He brought his coffee mug close to his face and savored the aroma and then the taste. Distracted by the sight of his precious son, human again, he watched the two youngsters, their heads close together, and realized probably the first to know Teo’s secrets of turning into a wolf would be Maddox Lahey-McHall.

Scott saw the thoughtful expression on his friend’s face and turned to the kids too.

Then all three fathers looked on the pair in silence. After a minute Scott turned back and said, wistfully, “I hope it’s always like that for them—like you and me.”

But it was too early in the day for sentimental goop, not after the night Stiles had had.

“Yeah, well, Derek hopes they get married.”

“I’ve never said that,” Derek answered, though Stiles’s slightly twisty smile signaled he was in the mood for sparring. “But a solid friendship _is_ a great foundation for marriage. Isn’t it, _sweety._ ” Derek paused. “All you need to add is passion.” His eyebrows did their notorious dance.

Stiles hadn’t expected Derek to rise to the challenge so immediately, or to get _philosophical_ either.

“Considering their combined ages barely equal ten, I don’t think passion’s a—”

Suddenly both Derek and Scott were focused on the big table again. When Stiles looked he saw someone, a late-comer to breakfast, had settled next to Teo. Maddox was glaring at the interloper—and _growling_.

Scott bolted away, Derek with him. Isaac had a hand gripping Maddox’s shoulder and was speaking, probably apologizing to the object of Maddox’s scorn, fortunately a human and not a potentially offended werewolf.

In no time Talia appeared. Stiles felt it best to join the fray then, hearing phrases like, “just being protective,” “didn’t recognize your scent,” and “post full moon effects.” Talia said these things—and, really, Stiles thought, being reasoned with by Talia Hale was possibly much scarier than getting growled at by a child.

He sidled up to Derek, who’d lifted Teo and held him protectively. Teo didn’t look happy.

“Did you get to finish your breakfast?” Stiles asked him.

“Yes, Papa.—Is Maddox in trouble?”

Maddox, in Isaac’s arms, was hiding his face as his daddy swayed with him and Scott soothingly patted his back.

“Of course not.”

Teo whispered, “That man’s not pack!”

Stiles got up close and whispered too, “If grandma and grampa gave him breakfast, I’m pretty sure he’s OK, Tay.”

“Can I stay at Maddox’s tonight? Uncle Isaac says it’s OK.”

“Uuuuhhh, sure,” Stiles answered, adept at processing hairpin turns in conversation.

He tamped down thoughts about what a child-free night with the husband meant.

“Maddox! _Maddox!”_ Teo reached out to tap Maddox’s back. Maddox, damp-eyed, looked up but as soon as he saw Stiles tucked his head down again.

“Maddy, it’s OK.” Stiles assured. “Everything’s OK.”

“Yeah!” Teo cried. “We can have a _sleep-over_ tonight, Maddox!”

That news made Maddox smile. He muttered to his daddy and Isaac let him down. Once Teo was on the ground too he wiped away the last of Maddox’s tears with a finger.

“Nobody’s mad at you, Maddox,” he comforted, then giggled at the sound of what he’d just said.

He took Maddox’s hand and swung their arms. “Nobody’s mad at _Madd_ ox!”

The two boys skipped into the yard chanting together, “Nobody’s mad at _Madd_ ox! Nobody’s mad at _Madd_ ox!”

Other kids ran after them, jumping up and down and joining in.

“Don’t go far!” Stiles shouted.

Side by side with Derek, the hubbub behind them finally quieting down, fresh pitchers of iced tea and coolers of drinks being served, Stiles sighed, “At least we’ve got seven more years before— _teenager!_ Right?”

“Sure,” Derek assented. “Not like he’s doing _anything_ to take us by surprise _now_.— _Right?”_

Stiles regarded his husband with dawning realization. “Oh my god.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and started massaging it. When he opened his eyes again Derek was gaping at him, eyebrows high.

“ _What?”_ Stiles griped, not in the mood at all for games.

“You just did that thing your dad does.” Derek squeezed his own nasal bridge to demonstrate.

“ _Oh. My. God_ ,” Stiles groaned, throwing himself against Derek. “ _Hold me_ ,” he begged.

And so Derek held him.

**Author's Note:**

> I feel like I've been absent for a while. I had a computer catastrophe in March, which wiped out so much that was on my hard drive. I hadn't backed up files in a while and so lost lots of of works in progress including two fics nearly completed (one of them was for this series too.)
> 
> For a while I moped and grieved and was really annoyed with myself for being too lazy and complacent to back up my work properly, but I got over it. I got my pc refurbished and upgraded. I firmly believe re-writing always improves my work so I intend to re-write at least some of what got deleted.
> 
> Oh, and now I'm obsessed with backing up everything!


End file.
